The Boy’s Life of Lincoln

The Boy’s Life of Lincoln

By Helen Nicolay

The household goods that she brought with her to the Lin­coln home filled a four-horse wagon. Her own three children were well clothed and cared for. She was able to bring little Abra­ham and his eleven year old sister Sarah comforts they had never known.

The new stepmother quickly became very fond of Abraham. She encouraged him in every way to study and improve himself. Mr. Lin­coln once wrote, “It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.”

The family moved to Indiana. For two years Lincoln went without schooling of any sort. The school he attended shortly af­ter Sarah came was very simple. The Pigeon Creek settlement had only eight or ten very poor families. They lived deep in the forest. Even if they had the money, it would have been impossible to buy books, slates, pens, ink, or paper.

In Lincoln’s seventeenth year he had more books and better teachers, but he had to walk four or five miles to reach them. We know that he learned to write, and was giv­en pen, ink, a copybook, and a very small supply of writing paper. The instruction he received from his five teachers—two in Ken­tucky and three in Indiana—stretched over nine years. All together his schooling did not amount to one year.

The fact that he received this instruction, as he himself said, “by littles,” was an advan­tage. A lazy or not caring boy would have forgotten what was taught him at school. Abraham was neither indifferent or not caring. Every moment of instruction was a precious step to self-help. He worked on his studies with very unusual pur­pose and determination. He wanted to un­derstand them at the moment. He also want­ed to fix them firmly in his mind. His early companions all agree that he employed every spare moment to his studies. His stepmother tells us that “When he came across a passage that struck him, he would write it down on boards if he had no paper. He would keep it there until he did get paper. Then he would rewrite it, look at it, and repeat it. He had a copybook, a kind of scrapbook, in which he put down all things, and thus saved them.” He spent long evenings writing sums on the fire-shovel. Abraham worked his sums by the flickering firelight, making his figures with a piece of charcoal. When the shovel was all covered, he used a drawing-knife to shave it clean again.

He borrowed every book in the neigh­borhood. The list is a short one: “Robinson Crusoe,” “Aesop’s Fables,” Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” Weems’s “Life of Washington,” and a “History of the United States.” When every­thing else had been read, he began on the “Re­vised Statutes of Indiana,” which he visited a neighbor in order to read.

He was a social, sunny-tempered lad, as fond of jokes and fun as he was kindly and in­dustrious. His stepmother said of him: “I can say, what scarcely one mother in a thousand can say, Abe never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused . . . to do anything I asked him. . . . I must say ... that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or expect to see.”

He was not only a tall, strong country boy: he soon grew to be a tall, strong, sinewy man. He soon reached the unusual height of six feet four inches. His long arms gave him power as an axman. He usually beat his friends in races and mind puzzles. He could out-run, out-lift, out-wrestle his friends, that he could chop faster, split more rails in a day, carry a heavier log at a “raising,” or beat the neighborhood champion in any frontier athletics made him proud; but stronger than that was his hunger for learning. He felt that using the mind rather than muscle was the key to suc­cess. He wished not only to wrestle with the best of them, but also to be able to talk like the preacher, spell and cipher like the school­master, argue like the lawyer, and write like the editor. Because of his reading and his excellent memory, he soon became the best storyteller among his companions. The training from his studies made his naturally bright mind grow. His wit might be mischievous, but it was never malicious, and his nonsense was never intend­ed to wound. He took no pleasure in hunting. Almost every youth of the backwoods early became an excellent shot and sportsman. The woods still swarmed with game, and every cabin depended largely upon this for its sup­ply of food. But to his strength was added a gentleness, which made him shrink from kill­ing or inflicting pain. The time the other boys spent lying in ambush, he preferred to spend in reading or improving his mind.

In March, 1831, at the end of a terrible winter, Abraham Lincoln left his father’s cabin to seek his own fortune in the world.

امروز

امروز، اولین روز از بقیه عمر شماست،

 پس اگر خود را برای آینده آماده نسازید،

بزودی متوجه خواهید شد كه متعلق به گذشته هستید.

Russian

 

Russian is the world’s fourth language in number of speakers after Chinese, English, and Hindustani. It is extremely difficult to learn to speak Russian correctly, but the Russians have learned to be patient with foreigners who speak incorrect Russian. Journalists and others fascinated by discussing recent history with Soviet citizens suddenly free to talk to foreigners get a lot of joy out of knowing Russian. The much touted commercial advantages of learning Russian, however, have so far fallen far short of expectation.

The jobs with gargantuan salaries promised to Russian speakers as a fruit of the resurgence of free enterprise in the Soviet Union are few and shaky as the early enthusiasm of foreign investors gives way to wait and see attitudes. Long range, Russian remains a good bet for those willing to learn a language for career advantage. And in the meantime you can enjoy reading Chekhov and Dostoyevski in the original.

The Russian alphabet may look formidable, but it’s a false alarm. It can be learned in twenty minutes, but then you’ve got to face the real obstacles, such as three genders;

six noun cases with wave upon wave of noun groups that decline differently; a past tense that behaves like an adjective; and verbs that have not just person, number, and tense, but also something called “aspect” – perfective or imperfective.

Knowing Russian yields a lot of satisfaction. You want to pinch yourself as you find yourself gliding through a printed page of a language you may have grown up suspecting and fearing. Russian, like German, crackles with good, gutsy sounds that please you as they leap from your tongue. Russian is a high gratitude language. The new immigrants from the Soviet Union, though they speak one of the major languages of the world, don’t expect Americans to know it. They’ll be overjoyed to hear their language from you.

One advantage of choosing Russian is the head start it offers in almost a dozen other Slavic languages, should you suddenly want or need one.

زبان پيش گروه B

IN THE NAME OF GOD

Midterm English Test of Azad University, Bonab Branch,   Pre-University Level

Group: B    Time: 40 Minutes   Date: December 06, 2008 

---

   Choose the best choice

 

1-      This store is always ____. There are always lots and lots of people.
1)         Expensive	2)         Crowded	3)         Interested	4)         Polluted
2-      My ____ are from Mexico. They `re nice people.
1)         Neighbors	2)         Natures	3)         Computers	4)         Languages
3-      Cross out the word that doesn’t belong in this group.
1)         Wonderful	2)         Terrific	3)         Terrible	4)         Good
4-      Cross out the word that doesn’t belong in the group.
1)         Tribe	2)         Family	3)         Place	4)         Clan
5-      “A group of people in a game” is called a ____.
1)         Tame	2)         Team	3)         Temp	4)         time
6-      An extended family is____.
1)         A family with a mother, father and children
2)         A big family with grandparents, parents, children, aunts, and uncles
3)         A family with one parent and a child
4)         A family with no children
7-      In 1965, a ____ nuclear family was important.
1)         Rational	2)         National	3)         International	4)         traditional
8-      Many married women ____ lonely.
1)         Fall	2)         Fell	3)         Feel	4)         Fear
9-      The shirt is ____.
1)         Washing	2)         Washable	3)         Unwash	4)         washment
10-  ____ is the number of people in a country in a city or country.
1)         Pollution	2)         Population	3)         Practice	4)         Power
11-  The word “monster” is ____.
1)         A place to live		2)         A terrible thing
3)         something to drink		4)         a kind person
Read the following passages and choose the best answer.   Groups of people living together are called societies. Differences in the behavior of individuals put pressure on the society. These pressures are called social pressures and stress. The social pressures affect all the people in the society. Every large city in the world has problems with the social pressures, and many cities have been trying to solve these problems. All social pressures are caused by the way people live. When people constantly live under stress, they are often unhappy and unhealthy. Often they live under stress because they are not aware of the things that cause stress in their lives. In order to find out what things are causing stress, people must be willing to think about how they live, how they work, How they play, and how they think about themselves. If they do this, they can find out what they should change in their lives, in order to decrease their stresses and to be happier and healthier. Sometimes when people are asked if they are happy they have a hard time answering. Some people can't even tell you what makes them happy or unhappy. They often don't know why they are tired, or why they have headaches or stomachaches. Often these uncomfortable feelings come from living under constant stress.
12-  In large cities stress is caused by____.
1)         different behavior of individuals		2)         hard work
3)         uncomfortable feelings		4)         unhealthy people
13-  People who are under constant stress can live happier if they____.
1)         work and play		2)         change their way of life
3)         think while they are working		4)         put pressure on society
14-  The word “constantly” is closest in meaning to “____”.
1)         Really	2)         Continuously	3)         Safely	4)         hardly
15-  People can't change stressful things in their lives because they____.
1)         feel pain		2)         are tired
3)         are not aware of them		4)         aren't asked about them
16-  The underlined pronoun, "they" refers to____.
1)         pressures		2)         societies
3)         individuals		4)         people
Global warming brings with it no guarantees. We don't know exactly what will happen. What the effects will be. Nor do we know exactly where or when they will make problems. But it should be said that scientists have a pretty good idea of what is going to happen. They tell us that the possible effects of climate change could be big and, in some cases, would cause serious problems. Among the possible effects are increased number of human deaths, extinction of groups of animals and plants, and a dangerous rise in sea levels. With this in mind, we have to think of the costs of action and weigh them against the risks of inaction.   17-  The topic sentence of the paragraph is____.
1)         What the effects will be.
2)         We don't know exactly what will happen.
3)         Global warming brings with it no guarantees.
4)         A rise in sea level will cause lots of floods.
18-  "Risk" is the closest in meaning to____.
1)         danger	2)         region	3)         cause	4)         effect
19-  According to this passage, the scientists____.
1)     don't have any new ideas about global warming
2)     know all about the effects of global warming and climate
3)     have no feeling about the effects of global warming
4)     have a rather good idea of what is going to occur
20-  The underlined pronoun, "they" refers to____.
1)         the scientists	2)         guarantees	3)         possible effects	4)         actions

 

 

GOODLUCK

 

M. Mofarreh

زبان پيش گروه A-

IN THE NAME OF GOD

Midterm English Test of Azad University, Bonab Branch, Pre-University Level

Group: A   Time: 40 Minutes   Date: November 28, 2008

Choose the best choice

1-      There is a school ____ to my house.
1)         Next	2)         Far	3)         Under	4)         Near
2-      Peoples in my neighborhood are from ____ countries.
1)         Difficult	2)         Delicious	3)         National	4)         different
3-      Cross out the word that doesn’t belong in each group.
1)         Megalopolis	2)         Megacity	3)         City	4)         Candy
4-      Cross out the word that doesn’t belong in each group.
1)         Eucalyptus	2)         Elm	3)         Cypress	4)         furniture
5-      Your mother’s or father’s sister is your ____.
1)         Uncle	2)         Aunt	3)         Niece	4)         cousin
6-      A nuclear family is ____.
1)         A family with a mother, father and children
2)         A big family with grandparents, parents, children, aunts, and uncles
3)         A family with one parent and a child
4)         A family with no children
7-      Families in ____ every country are changing.
1)         At last	2)         Unless	3)         Almost	4)         at least
8-      Most men spend a lot of ____ on the job.
1)         Times	2)         Time	3)         Chance	4)         chances
9-      I’m looking ____ some wonderful shirts.
1)         After	2)         Up	3)         Like	4)         at
10-  ____ is the number of people in every square mile.
1)         Destiny	2)         Dirty	3)         Density	4)         document
11-  The word “products” is ____.
1)         Things in stores		2)         The air and land around us
3)         Things for babies to wear		4)         kinds of fish
Read the following passage and answer the questions as required.   The way you heat or cool your home has a big effect on the Earth. But most people don't usually think about where their heat comes from. Yet not all types of energy sources produce trash or add pollution to the air. Buildings have a big effect on the environment. They use more energy than any other economic category, including: transportation and industry. Almost half of the energy that buildings use goes into heating and cooling. A growing number of engineers and architects (people who design buildings) have been looking for new ways to make buildings that don't waste a lot of energy. Improvements have come in many forms, including better coverings, windows, and construction materials. Architects are also realizing that the size and location of a building affects how much energy it uses. Even the arrangement of buildings in a neighborhood makes a difference. In the last 10 years, there has been a major movement toward what you would call 'green' buildings. Such buildings are also described as environmentally friendly, or healthy because they produce less pollution to the environment.     12-  From the above passage, we understand that most people____.
1)         don't know how to heat or cool their houses		2)         look for ways to make buildings less wasteful
3)         like to have big and beautiful houses		4)         don't think about the source of energy they use
13-  The underlined word 'they' in the second paragraph refers to____.
1)         engineers	2)         transportation	3)         buildings	4)         people
14-  According to the passage, the 'green' buildings____.
1)         will be our close friends		2)         use more energy than any other economic category
3)         cause little damage to the environment		4)         produce trash or add pollution to the air
15-  The passage tells us that architects are trying to____.
1)         build modern buildings		2)         improve a major movement
3)         look for a different neighborhood		4)         design buildings that waste less energy
16-  The underlined word "including" is closest in meaning to the word “____”.
1)         such as	2)         as	3)         instead	4)         without
Some people think that sports and games are not important things to do; they prefer going to the cinema, listening to the radio or sleeping. But sports and games should not be considered just an amusement; they are very necessary, especially for those who work with their brains. Sports and games make our bodies strong, prevent us from getting too fat, and keep us healthy. But these are not their only uses; they are very useful for character- training, in their lessons at school, boys and girls learn about the usefulness of working together, discipline and love of one’s country; but what is learned in books can not have the same deep effect on a child’s character as what is learned by experience. A student who learns to work for his team and not for himself on a football field, will find it natural to work for the good of his country instead of only for his advantage. 1.
17-  What is the main idea of the passage?
1)         The usefulness of sports and games for character-training.
2)         The importance of love and discipline.
3)         The effects of amusement.
4)         The preference of hobbies over sports and games.
18-  The underlined ‘they’ refers to:
1)         bodies	2)         boys	3)         sports and games	4)         amusements
19-  According to the passage, playing sports and games is ____ for people who work with their brains.
1)         an amusement	2)         not important	3)         a waste of time	4)         very necessary
20-  In order to educate children better and more efficiently, they____.
1)         should hate playing games and sports		2)         should only study their lessons at school
3)         shouldn’t be prevented from playing		4)         shouldn’t pay attention to any amusements

 

 

 

 

I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

 

GOODLUCK

 

M. Mofarreh

 

زبان عمومي

IN THE NAME OF GOD

 

Midterm English Test of Azad University, Bonab Branch  

  Time: 40 Minutes   Date: December 05, 2008 

   Choose the best choice

A: Vocabulary

1-      The teacher spoke so quietly that the students could ____ hear her.
1)         Difficult	2)         Hard	3)         Hardy	4)         Hardly
2-      I will do ____ I can to help you.
1)         How	2)         Where	3)         Whatever	4)         However
3-      The imaginary line around which the earth turns, is called “____”.
1)         Meridian	2)         Ax	3)         Oxen	4)         Axis
4-      The tired boy ____ on the bed and went to sleep.
1)         Lay	2)         Lied	3)         Lying	4)         layed
5-      The world “____” comes from the Latin word meaning “to know”.
1)         Knowledge	2)         Date	3)         Information	4)         Science
6-      The travelling of the earth around the sun helps cause the ____.
1)         Reasons	2)         Seasons	3)         Hurricane	4)         Earthquake
7-      The scientific name for human beings is “____”.
1)         Man	2)         Homo sapiens	3)         Ancestors	4)         Cavemen
8-      Work was ____ start on a new factory building.
1)         Going	2)         Nearly	3)         about to	4)         approximately
9-      People will respect you more ____.
1)         By looking at you with anger		2)         If you laugh at them
3)         If you are a good listener		4)         If you are very selfish
10-  Engineering is ____.
1)         Finding ways for solving problems
2)         Scientific ways of building up a great body of knowledge
3)         A branch of applied physics
4)         Not an academic field of study
B: Grammar
11-  I'm having ___ a wonderful time in Belem that I don't want to go home.
1)         such	2)         too	3)         so	4)         enough
12-  The garage was just ---- for two cars to fit in.
1)         so big	2)         very big	3)         big enough	4)         enough big
13-  When they were in Japan, they ____ speak either Japanese or English.
1)         had to	2)         have to	3)         must	4)         should
14-  This book is ____ one I have ever read.
1)         bad	2)         worse	3)         the bad	4)         the worst
C: Reading Comprehension
People have long been interested in having one language that could be spoken throughout the world. Such a language would help promote understanding and better feeling among nations. A universal language also would increase cultural and economic ties among various countries. Through the years, at least 600 universal languages have been proposed. Esperanto is the most successful universal tongue. About 10 million people have learned Esperanto since its creation in 1887.
15-  The passage is mainly about ____.
1)         universal languages		2)         human languages
3)         various countries		4)         language learning
16-  Esperanto should be ____.
1)         an artificial language		2)         a modern language
3)         a natural language		4)         an industrial language
17-  According to the passage, even the most successful universal language____.
1)         Does not have many speakers
2)         Has been less successful than Esperanto
3)         Is very difficult to learn
4)         Has fewer speakers than any other language

Recent technological changes are making modern medicine a more popular and exciting field than ever before. First, new technology is now available to modern “disease detectives”, doctors and scientists who are putting together clues to solve medical mysteries-that is, to find out the answers to questions of health and sickness. Second, knowledge of genetics may prevent or cure birth problems and genetic illnesses. Third, successful transplants of the heart and other organs of the body are much more common than they were ten or twenty years ago.
18-  We understand from this passage that ____.
1)         modern medicine is a very popular and exciting field
2)         new technology has changed all fields especially medicine
3)         all medical mysteries have been solved nowadays
4)         knowledge of genetics tries to find out the answers to questions of birth
19-  The word “prevent” means ____.
1)         consist	2)         insist	3)         step	4)         stop
20-  This text says that ____.
1)         transplant of heart is a possibility now
2)         transplant is not as much common as twenty years ago
3)         new technology puts organs together to solve problems
4)         the knowledge of genetics is not related to birth problems

 

 

I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

 

GOODLUCK

 

M. Mofarreh

 

North America

Teacher: Heather, go to the map and find North America.

Heather: Here it is.

Teacher: Good. Now class, who can tell me who discovered

America?

Class: Heather

مصاحبه با دومين مرد ثروتمند جهان و توصيه هايش به جوانان

There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity. Here are some very interesting aspects of his life:

1. He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!

2. He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.

3. He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha, that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence.

4. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.

5. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company.

6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis. He has given his CEO's only two rules. Rule number 1: do not lose any of your share holder's money. Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.

7. He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch Television.

8. Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.

9. Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.

His advice to young people:

"Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself and Remember:

A. Money doesn't create man but it is the man who created money.
B. Live your life as simple as you are.
C. Don't do what others say, just listen to them, but do what makes you feel good.
D. Don't go on brand name; just wear those things in which you feel comfortable.
E. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things; just spend on things that you really need.
F. After all it's your life, then why give others the chance to rule your life."

German

Germany didn’t leave us a world of colonies where people still speak German, but they may as well have. In addition to being the principal language of Germany, Austria, and one of the three main languages of Switzerland, German is, surprisingly, the language most natives will try first on foreigners when they come visiting in Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia – in fact all the way from Germany’s eastern border with Poland as far east as Moscow and from the Baltic Sea in the north clear down to the Mediterranean. English may edge German out by the time of the next scientific poll in Eastern Europe, but that leaves a tremendous number of German speakers across Europe and elsewhere. Germany’s reunification, reestablishing Germany as the central European power, can only intensify the German language’s importance.

German grammar is far from the most difficult, though you’ll be hard to convince when you find yourself trapped in one of German’s unending dependent clauses. You can wait through lunch for the German noun after a loop-the-loop adjectival clause that might translate literally as “the never- having- definitively- researched- the- mating- habits- of- the- Asian- armadillo- Dr. Schultz,” and you can wait even longer for the German verb. It’s something you get the hang of, though, and remember, German is family. Its kinship with English will be a boon throughout.

There are three genders in German and officially four noun cases, but they’re easy. In only one case does the noun itself change endings, the rest being taken care of by the preceding article, adjective, or other modifier.

German offers dividends to those interested in science, philosophy, opera, and getting a good job in international commerce.

Portuguese

 

Don’t dismiss Portuguese as some kind of slurring, overanalyzed cousin of Spanish.

The lightning population growth of Portuguese speaking Brazil alone makes Portuguese a major world language. Ancient Portuguese navigators carried the language to the mid-Atlantic, the African countries of Angola and Mozambique, the enclave of Goa in India, and even the Indonesian island of Timor.

Portuguese is the ninth most widely spoken language in the world, after Chinese, English, Hindi-Urdu, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, German, and Indonesian. Thus, Portuguese is an intelligent choice for the language “shopper” who wants to be different without abandoning the mainstream.

Portuguese nasal sounds are easier than the French and the grammar is only slightly more difficult than Spanish. Because I learned Spanish first, Portuguese will always sound to me like Spanish that’s been damaged on delivery. (That’s just a smile, not an insult. Dutch sounds the same way to anyone who’s first studied German, Danish sounds that way to anyone who’s first studied Norwegian, and Serbo-Croatian definitely fits the description to anyone who’s first studied Russian.)

tear

If i were a tear in ur eye

i wood roll down onto ur lips.

But if u were a tear in my eye i wood never cry as

i wood be afraid 2 lose u!

God

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

The courage to change the things I can; and the

 wisdom to know the difference.

Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr

 

Spanish

 

Spanish seems to be the “natural” second language for Americans, owing to our proximity to the Spanish-speaking centres of North, Central, and South America and the growing prevalence of Spanish in our country. It’s easier for Americans to speak good Spanish than good French. It’s a more phonetic language and you don’t have the problem of the last few letters of a word being silent – as you often do in French. Also, correct Spanish pronunciation is less difficult than correct French pronunciation.

Spanish grammar is similar to French (as is that of all other Romance languages), and the subjunctive tense waits to test your character.

There are some happy surprises in store for Spanish learners. Of course you expect Spanish to carry you through Latin America and Spain, but you may not expect to be able to communicate with the older generation in the Philippines and even with Sephardic Jews in Israel (as well as Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria) whose vernacular is a language known as Ladino, a fifteenth and sixteenth century Spanish with a Hebrew admixture that is written in the Hebrew alphabet. Spanish offers perhaps the grandest of good deal opportunities. Whoever learns Spanish holds an option to acquire Portugese at half price.